


It flickers

by AriesNoHope



Category: Justice League: Gods and Monsters (2015)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 11:17:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17058803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AriesNoHope/pseuds/AriesNoHope
Summary: After a battle Kirk gets hurt, Hernan struggles because of not being capable of protect him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SDSlanderson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SDSlanderson/gifts).



> This is a present, it’s a try to turn two sad songs in something kinda happy, but in the end all I could got is an angst-comfort plot.
> 
> Inspiration is taken from Leave it out the rest and One more light by Linkin Park which SDS and I love so much.
> 
> Hope you like to read it as much I enjoy to write it.

***

It’s almost time to end the patrol of a quiet night. Kirk flies over Gotham City at low altitude near the forgotten empty buildings where homeless people seek refuge in cold nights.

There’re not much people around.

Unusual.

Even at this time of the night, Gotham is always alive.

But a calm night is appreciated by the Batman, maybe for tonight he could have a rest of this endless fight.

When he was in college how could he imagine himself in some strange future to be here in the middle of the night, watching for the good people in the allies, fighting against all those freaks who he couldn't even try imagine to exist.

Suddenly an excessive force takes him by one of his legs. He abandons the sky and hits the pavement floor. A silent and brutal attack - cracking sounds from pavement and bones - letting a fragile body.

His stunned mind delays to respond. Before he could even try to react, he is lifted by the same leg and hit the floor once more.

Only those two actions and all his body aches like hell.

It aches.

Again.

All the pain in his body never seems to stop, the fear to be close to dead.

The pain to be alive, waiting for the cancer to consume him.

Everything turns dark - an annoying noise arises in his ears - the systems of his helmet must be failing.

Shit.

Hernan must be waiting for him already, preparing a coffee or warm chocolate to welcome him back. A good moment to think of that, to think of a warm place waiting for him.

Kirk lies on the floor thinking thousand things in a second since he can't move. It's hard to breathe, to even try to sit. The person, creature or monster that attacks him approaches more; take him by the neck, choking him.

“You mess up with the wrong people, tinny Dracula”

The monster raises him slightly from the floor. Kirk fights back with hands and legs, he tries to remove the murder hands. It seems useless; the creature is as large as Hernan, not as strong as him but certainly stronger and brutish than the Batman.

Although the monster is capable to break Batman’s neck, he doesn't seem to have the intention to make this easy and quick, he just stay there squeezing, looking to Kirk right in the eyes through the glass of his broken lenses, waiting for the life to be extinguished in his body.

Kirk watch him well, he could make a good portrait of him after this, making record of the scary moment. He has a human alike semblance, scales in the skin, large and cold hands with killer yellow eyes shining and waiting.

Certainly he looks like a monster and Kirk has been taught to not to judge a book by his cover. Nonetheless this is a different kind of book to judge, like those who are monsters in the inside and out.

 _“Fucking monster”_ Kirk thinks to himself in despair, fighting again and again for his life.

_“He’s gonna kill me”_

A last try - a one well thought - he brings his hands to the back of his head hoping that the emergency button could be still working.

Just a click.

The grip in his neck release seconds later, Kirk can feel the air running through his throat again. A loud sound, concrete and walls cracking is all Kirk can perceive, then Hernan’s fists against flesh and bones. Kirk rolls over his side to watch the scene, Hernan’s wearing his night sweet pants covering with blood after every punch.

More and more blood.

Just more blood.

“Wait” Kirk manages to whisper.

The monster isn’t moving anymore - not even a little bit - only Kirk’s voice could stop the rage, the blood.

Kirk keeps trying to breathe, to remain conscious when Hernan examined him with his x-ray vision. He counts every broken bone, every little internal bleeding. Full of the monster’s blood in his hands, half panicking watching Kirk barely breathing and bleeding, Hernan decided to ask for help. In the emergency entrance of Gotham’s Central Hospital, Leslie Thompkins receives them.

Again there.

Kirk regaines consciousness once in a while as Thompkins walks with him in a stretcher. His eyes recognize those white lights, those white walls, the medicine aromas, the hurry to save his life.

Hernan is near every time he opens the eyes.

Where did all Kirk’s strength go? He was flying and a moment later he barely could move.

Where did it go?

Where were all those persons who loved him?

They leave too.

Like his body strength, like his willing to fight.

And after all those years, he still remembers.

The aching body.

The lonely fight for his life.

“Kirk”

Not him, he doesn't want to lose him.

“Don't worry, everything’s gonna be alright”

Just him.

Just Hernan make this easy.

Hernan runs to save him every time, no questions, no betrayals. Hernan is there now.

Without him, no one cares.

***

Then the darkness begins.

Kirk could feel Hernán’s fear; alone in that emptiness, in that loneliness his dead left. No one else is around, no one else.

Three meters under the dirt and he can’t reach him.

There’s just the silence of his grave.

***

Kirk opens the eyes; the memories of his reality come to him little by little as his brain awakes. It's still dark outside; he hears all those familiar sounds, the hospital’s indicators, the ambulances that arrive and leave get mixed between Gotham PD patrols' sirens.

The body aches, the memory speaks.

The attack, the monster, the blood.

Hernan.

He is there, seated next to his bed, holding his hand even in his sleep in a steady grip. Kirk founds himself there, appreciating a new company in his life, more than ten years now. Terrified in silence to lose him, to leave him alone. He must awake something important must be discussed. Kirk press his shoulder first, he moves it slightly later.

“How you feeling?” he smiles

“We need to talk” Kirk tries to smile back, he fails.

“Something’s wrong?”

“In a way”

“You can tell me everything”

“I know”

Kirk can smile this time, a sad but beautiful expression.

“All this time together has been wonderful. I thank you for everything you have done for me. You know I could regret many things in my life but not knowing a man like you neither what we have achieved”

“Kirk”

“If anything should happen to me, I hope you never regret it neither. You should continue to be the hero you are even without me”

This sounds like a goodbye, it scares the big man. Kirk's eyes speak by themself losing shine.

“Even when I was at my lowest, it was you who brought me back”

“Amor...”

“If something happen to me, if we part ways, keep me in your memory please, yours always will be with me”

“Kirk please, you are scaring me …”

“For a long time I forgot about good things, like a smile. And for a long time you smile to me without effort. In that sense, I’ve been happy. With the Justice League you have give me meaning … but even with all this, I’m not strong like you.”

***


	2. Chapter 2

It’s Hernan turn in the line. He asks for a black coffee, no sugar this time.

_“I’m not strong like you”_

_“I’m not asking you that. I’m here for you, always.”_

Hernan didn’t try to argue at the moment, he did try to calm Kirk with sweet words and petting his hand. Calming his body maybe his mind would too.

“Please rest, we talk in the morning”

Is there something he's doing wrong? Is he ignoring something?

He stares at his coffee as he thinks, then he walks towards the hospital entrance. A bag with a change of clothes for Kirk. He did have to change his stained clothes for a Gotham P. D. sweatpants and t-shirt at the hospital when Kirk’s life was at risk. Nonetheless, after their talk he couldn’t sleep so he went home for proper clothes for himself and Kirk. As he walks in the hospital corridors Hernán pays attention to Kirk’s heartbeat that is resting in his bed.

Kirk fought against cancer here, inside one of the rooms in this building. Did he win? He never gave up, is he doing it now? Question after question with no answer. He finds without intention the chapel. In silence a few persons use their faith to keep going.

They pray.

Hernan takes place at the back of the place, although he doesn’t find peace in prayers the place by itself brings something to him when he watches some candles hypnotizing him with their flickering light along with the heartbeat from Kirk’s room.

One of the lights goes out when the candle is too little to have a flame, but Kirk’s heartbeat goes on.

***

When Hernan enters the room Thompkins is there, she talks with the vampire who receives Hernan's bag right away anxious to leave the hospital.

“Don’t force yourself for a while please” she decides to leave the room when Kirk takes out the clothes from the bag.

“You need to rest” the first worried words.

Kirk puts on a baseball hat and sunglasses at the end, ready for another day. “You know my body recovers quickly. We need to find who attacked me”

“Don’t worry, he’s in custody”

“Good, I want to interrogate him”

“What for? It’s pretty obvious why he did it. You got in jail a bunch of rich people this month, one of those bastards should pay him”

“I want to talk to him”

Hernan moves in front of Kirk to block the way, he tooks off the sunglasses from Kirk's eyes but his look remains distant.

“You should take some days off. I may join you”

“You have things to do”

“It’s almost just paperwork; I can do it being with you”

Kirk just nods.

“Amor … “

“It’s fine Hernan. I’m fine”

“What you say last night …” Hernan tries to start his talk.

“I needed to say it, that’s all”

“What you said ... you’re wrong. You are stronger than me. All this time you have fight, you have been so brave …”

“I’m tired Hernan”

Hernan stops the encouragement speech he had ready when he listens the low voice about to break.

“I’m so tired of fighting” Kirk’s mind starts to spin, thinking and thinking about his fragility, about the monsters they have to fight, about this new fear.

“Hey, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere” Hernan catches him, taking him off from that madness. Kirk can relax his shoulders and his jaw when the big arms do their best to wrap him.

 

The batman doesn’t speak more; he tries to smile to enjoy their days off. He holds tight the warm hand when they leave the hospital, in the mini market where they bought food for Hernan, in the cab towards his place. All the time Hernan holds him back, trying to comfort him playing with their fingers in a secret chat.

When the night arrives Kirk stands outside in the house’s porch contemplating the night sky. Like in those nights when he can’t think about anything else to find the missing part for a cure, now he just stares at the flickering lights showing up little by little in the dark sky in silence of voice and mind.

Nobody cares right? About all those dead lights.

Almost nobody.

Hernan hugs him from behind warming him with a coat and his arms; his chest touches Kirk’s cold back making more comfortable Kirk's own body. “What are you thinking?”

“You must know it. Some of the stars we see at night might have already died, we just can see them because they were far away, they light just reach us now”

“After they have died? Isn’t amazing that we can still see their light?

“You make it sound like something beautiful”

“Isn’t it?”

“I’m not sure”

The protecting arms make him wonder, maybe it is beautiful indeed. Those arms give him a home, a place where he would be missed. Hernan hugs him a little stronger, and Kirk needs to tell him - even if he can’t find the words - that he loves him back, that he doesn’t have to worry.

One after another both of them seem to fight against different monsters, it seems there is no rest but Kirk is stronger, even if he can’t notice it sometimes.

Kirk turns around and Hernan lifts him in another hug to receive a tender and silent kiss.

“Don’t give up Kirk” he whispers still touching his lips.

Hernan rubs his back as he enters the house with him in his arms. Kirk tightens the hug with both arms and legs, buries the head in Hernan’s shoulder.

So warm.

So safe.

So alive. 

“Don’t give up”

***

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you like this little angst thing!!
> 
> Hugs and love!


End file.
